Main menu

Money Money Money Money… Mooonnneyyy

Well, if this isn’t a question I hear students asking everyday then I need to get my ears checked. I work with multicultural students who often come from underrepresented, underprivileged backgrounds. They have to fight, almost daily, to justify their attendance in college. They, like almost all students these days, also have to justify their spending. Most students I work with do not read their college textbooks. I never did as an undergrad and I graduated with distinctive academic achievement. Why spend the money when you are never going to use them? That type of question is the same question the author is asking. Why spend the money on a college education if you are not going to use it? In my opinion, the answer is that you shouldn’t. It is hard to say that as a student affairs professional because without students I would not have a job. However, as a student affairs professional I am fully here for the student, not for myself. That is why I joined this field. I do believe that education is transformative but if research shows it isn’t, maybe I am wrong. We can fight tooth and nail and say that it is but really, we could be wrong. We all thought the circle was flat at one time in human history. We all thought the Earth was the center of the universe. We were proven wrong through research. The only way to tell if higher education is working through more research. Once that happens then we will know more definitively if college is a valuable expense for our students.